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Birds of paradise (1 Viewer)

Ligon, Diaz, Morano, Troscianko, Stevens, Moskeland, Laman, Scholes. 2018. Evolution of correlated complexity in the radically different courtship signals of birds-of-paradise.
[BioRxiv preprint]

keywords: ornament, complexity, behavioral analyses, sensory ecology, phenotypic radiation

Ornaments used in courtship often vary wildly among species, reflecting the evolutionary interplay between mate preference functions and the constraints imposed by natural selection. Consequently, understanding the evolutionary dynamics responsible for ornament diversification has been a longstanding challenge in evolutionary biology. However, comparing radically different ornaments across species, as well as different classes of ornaments within species, is a profound challenge to understanding diversification of sexual signals. Using novel methods and a unique natural history dataset, we explore evolutionary patterns of ornament evolution in a group – the birds-of-paradise – exhibiting dramatic phenotypic diversification widely assumed to be driven by sexual selection. Rather than the tradeoff between ornament types originally envisioned by Darwin and Wallace, we found positive correlations among cross-modal (visual/acoustic) signals indicating functional integration of ornamental traits into a composite unit – the courtship phenotype. Furthermore, given the broad theoretical and empirical support for the idea that systemic robustness – functional overlap and interdependency – promotes evolutionary innovation, we posit that birds-of-paradise have radiated extensively through ornamental phenotype space as a consequence of the robustness in the courtship phenotype that we document at a phylogenetic scale. We suggest that the degree of robustness in courtship phenotypes among taxa can provide new insights into the relative influence of sexual and natural selection on phenotypic radiations.
 
l_raty said:
*) Daubenton/Martinet and Sonnerat -- these are presumed to show the same individual, which was the first and only one to have reached France at this time, based i.a. on what Buffon said of it (see the footnote [here]).
Click to expand...
Besides the footnote, the main text here is probably quite relevant as well, actually.
This is Buffon's account of le Calybé de la Nouvelle Guinée, with comments on the specimens forming the base of the description of this bird and the three birds described immediately before it, which included le Manucode noir de la Nouvelle Guinée, dit le Superbe. These comments are directly relevant to the type specimen of Paradisea superba. Buffon wrote:
L’individu qui a servi de sujet à cette description, ainsl que ceux qui ont servi de sujets aux trois descriptions précédentes (b), est enfilé dans toute sa longueur d’une baguette qui sort par le bec, & le déborde de deux ou trois pouces. C’est de cette manière très-simple, & en retranchant les plumes de mauvais effet, que les Indiens savent se faire sur-le-champ une aigrette ou une espèce de panache tout-à-fait agréable, avec le premier petit oiseau à beau plumage qu’ils trouvent sous la main; mais aussi c’est une manière sûre de déformer ces oiseaux & de les rendre méconnoissables, soit en leur alongeant le cou outre mesure, soit en altérant toutes leurs autres proportions; & c’est par cette raison qu’on a eu beaucoup de peine à retrouver dans le calybé l’insertion des ailes qui lui avoient été arrachées aux Indes, en sorte qu’avec un peu de crédulité on n’eût pas manqué de dire que cet oiseau joignoit à la singularité d’être né sans pieds, la singularité bien plus grande d’être né sans ailes.
--------
(b) Ces quatre oiseaux font partie de la belle suite d’animaux & autres objets d’Histoire Naturelle, rapportée des Indes depuis fort peu de temps , & remise au Cabinet du Roi par M. Sonnerat, Correspondant de ce même Cabinet. [...]
Click to expand...
This is an explicit statement, from someone who had seen these four specimens, that they had been subjected by natives, before being handed to the French travellers, to a treatment that made it basically impossible to assess their original structural characters with any confidence.
In other words, the structure given to the bird, on the plates that were used to re-identify the lost specimen, can presumably not have been more than an artist's guess.
 
Ligon RA, Diaz CD, Morano JL, Troscianko J, Stevens M, Moskeland A, Laman TG, Scholes E III. 2018. Evolution of correlated complexity in the radically different courtship signals of birds-of-paradise. PLoS Biol 16: e2006962.
[whole paper]

Abstract
Ornaments used in courtship often vary wildly among species, reflecting the evolutionary interplay between mate preference functions and the constraints imposed by natural selection. Consequently, understanding the evolutionary dynamics responsible for ornament diversification has been a longstanding challenge in evolutionary biology. However, comparing radically different ornaments across species, as well as different classes of ornaments within species, is a profound challenge to understanding diversification of sexual signals. Using novel methods and a unique natural history dataset, we explore evolutionary patterns of ornament evolution in a group—the birds-of-paradise—exhibiting dramatic phenotypic diversification widely assumed to be driven by sexual selection. Rather than the tradeoff between ornament types originally envisioned by Darwin and Wallace, we found positive correlations among cross-modal (visual/acoustic) signals indicating functional integration of ornamental traits into a composite unit—the “courtship phenotype.” Furthermore, given the broad theoretical and empirical support for the idea that systemic robustness—functional overlap and interdependency—promotes evolutionary innovation, we posit that birds-of-paradise have radiated extensively through ornamental phenotype space as a consequence of the robustness in the courtship phenotype that we document at a phylogenetic scale. We suggest that the degree of robustness in courtship phenotypes among taxa can provide new insights into the relative influence of sexual and natural selection on phenotypic radiations.

Author summary
Animals frequently vary widely in ornamentation, even among closely related species. Understanding the patterns that underlie this variation is a significant challenge, requiring comparisons among drastically different traits—like comparing apples to oranges. Here, we use novel analytical approaches to quantify variation in ornamental diversity and richness across the wildly divergent birds-of-paradise, a textbook example of how sexual selection can profoundly shape organismal phenotypes. We find that color and acoustic complexity, along with behavior and acoustic complexity, are positively correlated across evolutionary timescales. Positive links among ornament classes suggests that selection is acting on correlated suites of traits—a composite courtship phenotype—and this integration may be partially responsible for the extreme variation in signal form that we see in birds-of-paradise.
 
Stefan Prost, Ellie E Armstrong, Johan Nylander, Gregg W C Thomas, Alexander Suh, Bent Petersen, Love Dalen, Brett W Benz, Mozes P K Blom, Eleftheria Palkopoulou, Per G P Ericson, Martin Irestedt, Comparative analyses identify genomic features potentially involved in the evolution of birds-of-paradise, GigaScience, Volume 8, Issue 5, May 2019, giz003, https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giz003

Abstract:

The diverse array of phenotypes and courtship displays exhibited by birds-of-paradise have long fascinated scientists and nonscientists alike. Remarkably, almost nothing is known about the genomics of this iconic radiation. There are 41 species in 16 genera currently recognized within the birds-of-paradise family (Paradisaeidae), most of which are endemic to the island of New Guinea. In this study, we sequenced genomes of representatives from all five major clades within this family to characterize genomic changes that may have played a role in the evolution of the group's extensive phenotypic diversity. We found genes important for coloration, morphology, and feather and eye development to be under positive selection. In birds-of-paradise with complex lekking systems and strong sexual dimorphism, the core birds-of-paradise, we found Gene Ontology categories for “startle response” and “olfactory receptor activity” to be enriched among the gene families expanding significantly faster compared to the other birds in our study. Furthermore, we found novel families of retrovirus-like retrotransposons active in all three de novo genomes since the early diversification of the birds-of-paradise group, which might have played a role in the evolution of this fascinating group of birds.

[pdf]
 
ANDY ELLIOTT, NIGEL J. COLLAR, MURRAY D. BRUCE, GUY M. KIRWAN (2020) The nomenclature of Lophorina (Aves: Paradisaeidae), with remarks on the type and type locality of L. superba. Zootaxa, 4732 (1), 57–78.

Abstract

Based on molecular and morphological analyses, Irestedt et al. (2017) propose various taxonomic revisions for the genera Lophorina and Ptiloris (Paradisaeidae). Concerning Lophorina, which they recommend treating as three species rather than one, they hypothesize that the no longer extant type specimen of L. superba, heretofore believed to come from the Vogelkop in westernmost mainland New Guinea, in fact pertained to a different population (and different species, under their revised taxonomy), and they attempt to consolidate the nomenclatural repercussions of this by proposing a neotype for the name superba. However, the historical and specimen evidence fails to uphold their nomenclatural proposals, and the neotypification contains procedural errors. In particular, our examination of specimen material identifies nine points of conflict between what is clearly the most accurate contemporary illustration of the type and the plumage pattern and structure in the population to which Irestedt et al. assert it should be ascribed; we find not a single point in their favour. The only other relevant depiction of the type from the same period, while less accurate, also differs crucially from the population Irestedt et al. claim that it represents, especially in lacking black spots on the breast-shield. Furthermore, there is a strong historical rationale not only to believe that the type of superba was collected in the Vogelkop, as all contemporary commentators indicated, but also to regard the notion of tribespeople transporting it more than 600 km from its point of collection, as Irestedt et al. effectively suggest, as exceedingly unlikely. Consequently, with all this evidence against the proposed reidentification, the name L. s. superba should be maintained for populations of the Vogelkop, and the neotype designation rejected. The type locality reverts to the Vogelkop, but herein is further restricted to the Tamrau Mountains.

https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4732.1.2
 
R. SCHODDE, L. CHRISTIDIS, H. BATALHA-FILHO, P.G.P. ERICSON, M. IRESTEDT (2021). Why neotypification of Lophorina superba (Pennant, 1781) (Aves: Paradisaeidae) is justified—and necessary

Why neotypification of Lophorina superba (Pennant, 1781) (Aves: Paradisaeidae) is justified—and necessary | Zootaxa

www.mapress.com

Abstract​


We review Irestedt et al.’s (2017) neotypification of the senior species name superba Pennant, 1781 in the bird-of-paradise genus Lophorina in response to Elliott et al. (2020) who challenged the resultant shift in name from the small isolate in New Guinea’s Vogelkop to the widespread species in the island’s central cordillera. In nine male plumage traits which differentiate the two species, six of which had been identified as novel by Irestedt et al., we show that the only two figures of the perished male holotype of superba match the central cordillera species more closely than the Vogelkop. We find as well that not only was the trading of bird-of-paradise skins from the central cordillera to coastal ports in the Vogelkop feasible before European contact, but application of superba to the central cordillera species also promotes nomenclatural stability: the name has been used overwhelmingly at species rank for that widespread form throughout post-19th century media. Re-assessment of Irestedt et al.’s point-by-point justification of neotypification under Article 75.3 of the ICZN (1999) Code establishes, furthermore, that their case meets the requirements of every condition specified in the article; the neotypification is thus valid. Elliott et al.’s alternative to fix superba to the Vogelkop isolate by type locality restriction is not Code-compliant, nor is their evidence for interpreting J.R. Forster as the author of the name. In conclusion, we lay out the correct nomenclature for the taxa of Lophorina under the Code.


Why the need of the paper is necessary for me ?
 
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